In the training room where we hold most of our CEO Masterclasses, a small six-wheeled truck sits at the front of the room.
I realized one day it looked like someone’s kid had left a toy lying around.
But in fact, it’s a conversation starter with the CEOs. More specifically, it’s a way of figuring out where the actual problems in their businesses lurk.
That’s because the six wheels on the truck represent the six core areas of the business. I typically arrange these into two Triangles of Tension:
There are the three internal functions (Product, Marketing, Sales) and three core constituencies (Customers, Employees, Shareholders). You can read more about the model here:
When a CEO is facing some kind of problem in the business (and when aren’t they), the question becomes, Which of these six wheels is the one causing the trouble?
Almost every time I work with a CEO, after half an hour of considering the Two Triangles and their relationships in that CEO’s business, we can identify which wheel is spinning the slowest.
That, we realize, is where the CEO needs to focus.
There are a million variations that can occur within this framework, but here are some common ways one wheel slows down and causes broader issues in the business.
Internal Functions
Product/Service
When product is your slowest wheel, you may discover it through customer complaints about quality or your team’s inability to deliver what sales promised. Sales-focused CEOs let technical debt accumulate because they’re chasing the next deal. They might pull engineering resources toward quick customizations instead of building scalable foundations. The imbalance shows up as Product building features nobody buys while Sales makes promises Product can’t keep.
Marketing
Marketing typically lags when technical founders run the business. They believe the product speaks for itself. It doesn’t (usually). The imbalance appears as Sales and Product pulling resources away from Marketing because it feels like overhead. Sales wants collateral that closes deals this quarter. Product wants accurate technical documentation. Neither wants to invest in brand positioning.
Sales
When sales is your slowest wheel, revenue stalls and pipeline velocity drops. Product-focused CEOs view sales as a necessary evil and often underinvest in sales leadership and repeatable sales processes. Or you could see the opposite imbalance: Sales is so dominant it pressures Product to cut corners and Marketing to overpromise. In either case, sales is the wheel the CEO needs to spend time on.
Core Constituencies
Customers
When the customer wheel drags, you might see more customer complaints, or just a lot of churn. This imbalance usually comes from overindexing on shareholders - finance-focused CEOs are often guilty of this. They might cut support staff (or try to replace them with AI), reduce product investment, squeeze pricing. Or you see the opposite: “the customer is always right” CEOs who let customers destroy value. They serve unprofitable accounts and let customers dictate product roadmap.
Employees
Employee issues may manifest in fairly obvious ways (high turnover) but it can also be a slow creep of disengagement and cultural toxicity. This wheel might have slowed down because a customer-obsessed CEO burnt out their teams in service of customer demands. Or a finance-focused CEO may view labor as merely a cost to minimize. Conversely, some CEOs overcorrect and build great cultures that don’t create shareholder value or serve customers well.
Shareholders
If the shareholder wheel has slowed down, you’ll probably be hearing about it. Returns to shareholders can slacken when a customer-centric CEO forgets they need to deliver returns, or when an employee-focused CEO builds a beloved culture that doesn’t generate much (or any) profit. The imbalance appears as customers receiving excessive value (prices too low, service too generous) or employees receiving disproportionate resources… while shareholders subsidize both.
Which wheel is turning slowest in your organization?
As you think through this question, consider the following:
Most CEOs are inclined to give extra attention and resources to the “wheel” that aligns with their own background. The CFO-turned-CEO will probably have a constant eye on the shareholder wheel, for example.
Once you accelerate the problem wheel, another wheel will naturally become the limiting factor. This is a practice of continuous improvement and constant vigilance.
If you are a CEO and would like a complimentary 30-minute discussion on which wheel is lagging in your business, shoot me an email at joel@ceosys.co.